Thursday, October 30, 2008

Yes, it's a boys name ;) He was pretty content, even with all the commotion while I was there (yes, I am generally the cause...). His sisters were very excited about him and his brother is still getting over being displaced as the baby of the family.

Sometimes the best costume is the most authentic costume. Ian went the the Halloween parade as a wounded football player. He probably should have just left his pads on because about an hour later the school called to have me come pick him up. He had slipped while he was chasing some girl and landed on his shoulder.

He still thinks I'm kidding when I say I'm going to break his legs so we can get his arm to heal...

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

On Saturday, the Sutliff's community had their annual family Halloween party. Everyone sits out on the porch (if they dare!) and passes out candy for all the spookily dressed trick-or-treaters. They also have games and activities like Cupcake Spider Crafts, Spooky Bingo, and the now infamous Cake Walk.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

While Aimee and I took the broken boy to the ER, mom and dad offered to watch Avyrlie. Really they were just looking for an excuse to do some playing ;) and play they did. When I finally dropped Ian and Aimee off at home, I found mom and dad at Thanksgiving Point with Jessica and Greg as well. It took me an additional 45 minutes to get through the insane line and join up with them, but it was well worth it.

The kids were having a great time, and there is a ton of stuff to keep them entertained. Avyrlie loved the princess dress-up and carraige as well as the 'princess castle bounce house'. Label anything 'Princess' and she's there! Dylan had a great time in the bounce house as well, but both kids started getting restless during the storytime so we headed to the next activity.

Avyrlie and Dylan spent the next 20 minutes picking up kernels of corn and throwing them at each other and any other unsuspecting victim who ventured into corn-kernel throwing range. They were finally lured away with the promise of playing on the diggers. This turned out to be a little disappointing as kids were a little to small to handle the heavy machinery ;)

Then off to the corn maze! Dylan and Avyrlie both had to take a bite of an ear of corn. Even Jessica gave it a taste and found it just as unpleasant you might imagine old, dried, corn kernels to be :o The kid maze turned out to be just the right size for the kids with enough turns to momentarily escape, but not complex enough to got very lost. We tried it a second time with an egg hunt, which turned out to be very confusing, unorganized, and chaotic for the adults, but the kids were happy to do anything involving free candy :)

A couple obligatory 'face on the farm animal' and 'huge rocking chair' pictures later, and we were done enjoying the dusty, hay-filled playland, and ready to head for home.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Ian managed to wound his shoulder as he almost scored on what would be his last ball carry of the season. As he broke a tackle, he stepped out at the 7 yard line before being tackled into the end zone. Unfortunately he landed pretty badly and most likely broke his collarbone.

We're still in the ER waiting for x-ray results so more updates later...

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Monday, October 13, 2008

Hope you are having fun in Orlando. I don't think they let dogs on the rides anyhow so don't feel too bad leaving me behind. I lay with Avyrlie while she naps but I don't think the guy like me 'cause he keeps forgetting my name and calls me 'useless' instead.

Triela plays with me and keeps trying to have me stand in front of the stairs for some reason. Our favorite game is where she drags me across the kitchen floor by my beard.

Travel safe and remember to stick your head out the window. -Love, Fushilinna

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Snapped this out the front door with my phone this morning. That's as far as I wanted to venture out and was not going to take time to grab another camera before heading back to bed to wait for better weather ;)

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Avyrlie started cheerleading classes at The Little Gym yesterday. It's a new program for them so enrollment is currently pretty low in the weekday classes. Very cool to have more teacher time, but I think one or two more kids would add some enthusiasm. Avyrlie was very excited and tried all kinds of things that we hadn't been able to get her interested in during the gymnastics class she took this summer.She lost interest a little while playing with the parachute, but was like, TOTALLY EXCITED to jump around with pom poms. Overall, the biggest challenge was getting her to put on shoes with socks after wearing sandals all summer. The scream of "YOU ARE BREAKING MY FEET!!" quickly subsided once the other little girl told Avyrlie how cute her shoes are. Sometimes peer pressure rocks ;)

I was a bit nervous snapping pictures not wanting to interrupt or distract Avyrlie, but I should have asked before hand because the teacher was very cool with it and even posed Avyrlie a couple times for me toward the end.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

So, we found that adding a second beagle created an exponential increase in the beagleness factor of both dogs. By dogs I mean hellspawn. Around every corner was a 12 inch dog who would leap three times that high to snatch any food item on your person and then flee, only to be engaged in battle by it's nemesis/best friend for the next several hours. The goal of each battle was not victory exactly, but to climb upon and leap from every piece of furniture in sight while biting onto the opponents ears. Triela has memorized and mastered ascent routes onto the couches, counter tops, and tables, and is currently working on hiding in the ceiling fan. Sadie had stopped actually touching the ground as she gave chase and instead hovered while bouncing off walls, furniture, and Avyrlie in order to complete physics defying maneuvers.By the end of each epic battle (measured in days...) the dogs would simultaneously fall into unconsciousness next to whatever human was closet to them, usually Ian or Avyrlie laying on my bed. Both dogs were just as intensely lazy as they were active. Once they had filled the destruction quota for the day, they had no interest in anything going on around. Alert dogs? Not hardly.

(I'm not alert?)

In the end we decided to find Sadie a new home and find a better fit for Aimee's dog expectations (freaky looking, useless, yappy, poof of fur that darts underfoot). We found a stay-at-home mom with several kids who loves the outdoors and wanted a walking companion. Sadie (without the presence of another beagle) loves people and is very friendly and social. We were all a bit sad to see her go, but glad to have found her a good home. DefCon beagle was lowered to a reasonable level once again.

Back to the dog hunt...

For several weeks I frequented the pound and browsed online listings without much luck. We decided that the perfect dog would be under $300, alert, housebroken, female, playful, and bring home at least $80,000 before taxes.

Finally, this last Monday, I found a listing on KSL for a 7 month old, housebroken, female Shih Tzu for $300. Five out of six... A quick email to Aimee received a 'Yes, yes, yes" reply so I began calling and leaving messages that we were interested despite the dogs lack of earning potential. I'll admit to being a bit of a pest because I called every 10 minutes alternating between the home and cell phone numbers listed on the ad. Two weeks of dog hunting had made me a bit desperate.

(some kinda hair day)

I finally got a call back so Avyrlie and I headed out to meet the mutt. She had been with the family about a month, and mom had just found out she was pregnant with a surprise fifth kid (who is apparently replacing the dog. Poor kid ;)

(like a furball with teeth...)

The bipartisan naming process in Smith house has been greatly improved over the years, but still creates some heated debates and frequently involves moves still banned from most cage fighting leagues. In this case my arsenal contained the fact that Aimee has just encouraged the purchase of a dog with CHINESE ORIGINS!!! Oh the naming possibilities! As with Triela, the name Aimee will call her and the actual name are slightly different, but I needed a quick compromise to escape the double arm bar before the damage was permanent, and thinking is tough with your face mashed between the floor and the kneecap of your significant other.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Headed up the canyon to enjoy the weather as we listened to the last hour of conference this afternoon. Avyrlie was pretty excited to see the snow both kids loved throwing rocks at the river. I couldn't quite find a spot to make the photo I wanted, but we got a couple pretty good pix anyhow.

Ian was in an especially good mood of course because he loves having his photo taken ;) All in all we had a good afternoon enjoying the canyon and weather.

I have to mention how almost impressed I was with Aimee. The last couple times we headed up the canyon she wore sandals. Not like Teva's or even flip flops, but little dress sandals made specifically for flat, level ground and can barely handle stairs. This time she remembered to wear tennis shoes! Yes, she does own a pair of hiking shoes, but we'll take what we can get. Of course, when I told her we should go take some pictures in the snow, she dressed in a short sleeve shirt and left her jacket home...

Also, the eyeball thing. You'll notice that Avyrlie doesn't like to look at the camera very often and Ian won't open his eyes. Ian is easy to explain: he takes after his mother (yes, that explains a whole lotta things...). Avyrlie is my fault. I have a pretty good sized collection of vampire movies that Avyrlie loves to watch with me. In one series, the vampires souls are sucked from their body when someone takes their picture. I may have explained this with a bit more detail and drama to Avyrlie. She hasn't actually said anything about it, and I haven't asked, but I've noticed the she won't look at the camera for posed shots lately.

She does still love to have her picture taken and assumes that I take photos of everything she does all day long. Frequently she will do something, bring me my camera, and ask to see a picture of it. Very cute :)

Hayden had a good time and kept his dad busy providing entertainment.Click below to keep reading...

Aaron and Hayden made it to Ian's game against Olympus. They had a pretty quick defense that we couldn't seem to get around to well. Hopefully they start working on their passing game sometime here...

It was wet, windy, and raining steadily all morning so I set up the canopy just behind the endzone as did one of the other parents as well. It ended up being the pre-game and half-time gathering place for the team to hide out from the rain for a bit. Of course in weather like that I wish I'd splurged the extra $50 for the waterproof, quick setup version :( We wedged an umbrella in the top and it worked out pretty well to keep us dry (mostly worried about the camera...) and keep Hayden entertained trying to snag the umbrella handle.

Afterward, we all headed for Indian food. We Smiths have added an awesome Indian food restaurant with a lunch buffet to out list of must-haves in any neighborhood we live in. Saturday was an especially busy day. Hayden took the opportunity to practice entertaining the crowd. He was needing a nap, but without a warm bottle, it just wasn't happening. Avyrlie tried her hand at being the good example and stayed in her seat and ate her lunch.